cover image Doctors and Patients: What We Feel about You

Doctors and Patients: What We Feel about You

Peter H. Berczeller. MacMillan Publishing Company, $20 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-02-509265-5

Seeking to dispel the often unfavorable image of doctors, Berczeller, an internist who is retired from private practice and now teaches at the New York University School of Medicine, here draws on his experience to plead the cause of doctors persuasively, compassionately and often humorously. Maintaining that they, like patients, are subject to anxiety, despair and guilt, along with conflicts (including sexual temptation), the author stresses the importance of the patient's cooperation and intelligent participation in his or her health care. Relations of doctors with patients' families and consulting physicians, he notes, may also prove delicate. Berczeller further warns doctors against the professional and emotional risks of treating friends and VIPs. As to choosing a doctor--a responsibility of the patient now thrown into question by health care reform--he recommends seeking a professional who can combine ``humaneness with technical skill . . . not a genius but one who worries a lot.'' (Feb.)